#frozen ashes

Book 3 of The Calendula Chronicles.

Story synopsis: Albert Wesker molded his captive into the perfect, pliable bait for taking out Rockfort Island's paramilitary facility, and cracking open the Ashford family’s secrets. But who’s really in control, once chaos breaks out?

The stakes have never been higher for Marigold, but she may not be fast enough to save everyone.

Book 3 of the Calendula Chronicles series. Written as the other side of The Antarctica Incident.

Want to catch up? The story's a ways ahead on AO3

Chapter summary: Marigold remembers to aftermath of that initial accident, and a plan is put into motion to head off the worst case scenario.

October 1, 1968: A manor in Devon, England

The day was shaping up to be bright, and unusually warm for October. Nineteen-year-old Marigold was steady enough to leave her bed by now for prolonged periods since the ‘accident’, but her father had cautioned her against going down into the rest of the house until her health had fully stabilized.

Meals had been brought up to her, and Poppy, already exposed when she had rushed out to greet them on arrival, was assigned to be the sole point of contact between her and the rest of the house staff.

The situation screamed quarantine. It wasn’t something she could justifiably do anything about.

Dr. Edward Ashford had been documenting her vitals since they’d come back home. Her father had called in a favor at a London research hospital when they’d touched back down on English soil, taking over a room filled with bulky machinery and screens in the dark hours of the morning. His own lab would have equipment…but the ultrasound machine, an innovative new technology, was the thing that had consumed his attention.

Alexander had been by his side, whispering. He’d startled when Marigold had asked why he was being so bloody loud about it. The headache she was trying to fight off had taken up far more of her attention at the time, but she didn’t miss the look the two shared, while they moved quickly to set up.

Earlier that year, she’d had an…indiscretion. She’d been the only truly unlucky one in the whole sordid mess (oh, but Luisa owed her, now, and she intended to collect, one day). The end result had left her insides scarred, rendering her sterile and with chronic pain. A mule for the marriage market. Joining her family in Africa had been a means to redirect her boundless energy to the family’s blossoming venture.

Drained from her ordeal, the young woman in the hospital gown initially missed how they’d stilled when the screen started to show images of her internals. After a moment, she narrowed her eyes. “What is it?”

Alexander had blinked owlishly, asking carefully, “How are you feeling?”

“Like I didn’t eat or move for far too long, and then got bundled into a plane for over a day,” she snapped back. “I’m tired, and I want to sit in the bath for a week. Assuming that my plumbing hasn’t officially gone AWOL, instead of just being broken. What’s happening?”

Her father spoke softly. “Lysis reversal. I was right…Marigold, dear, look at your hands.”

She’d down so, puzzled, realizing after a moment that all of her little nicks from fencing, the tiny scarring of living had disappeared. Even the smattering of freckles across her arms had gone away. “I don’t understand,” she had said finally, mind refusing to process the implications.

Her father had squeezed her hand then, and told her to go dress. They could discuss it when she was rested, and in her own home.

She finally spoke up an hour into the drive back. “Why the secrecy? Isn’t this the goal of what you’re trying to do?” Marigold had kept her eyes down, looking at her hands. Edward Ashford had paused for a long moment, settling upon, “The manner in which this happened worries me. I think it’s best to get you home and work out what’s happened before bringing Oswell into the loop.” There had been an edge in his tone, and Alexander had glanced at her with some worry.

There had been a hard glint in her brother’s eye that hadn’t been there before. Whatever had happened had malicious intent backing it.

Someone had tried to hurt her, and now something was rolling back all of the damage that she, and others had done to her body in the past. Making her into a blank slate.

Her father and brother had started the trip open and trusting to that little circle of researchers they’d gathered. Now they…weren’t.

Marigold had kept her eyes trained on her hands, only glancing up to gauge their faces. After a long moment, she finally spoke again, voice quiet. “Anything could happen, and no one would ever know, would they.”

The three of them fell silent for the rest of the drive, never quite realizing that those words had held the chilling weight of prophecy.

Now, Marigold made her way to her father’s study, letting herself in to sit in front of the huge desk which dominated the room. On the wall behind the desk, Edward had mounted his old messer blade from his university days. A faint dueling scar from a similar blade was on her father’s jaw, the old badge of honor of the men of the ruling classes.

She still felt tired, though it was a normal sort of tired, not the consuming fatigue that had defined the last week and a half as…Sonnetroppe…had settled into her system.

The desk was piled with diagrams, notes. Not all of it was research, Marigold realized. Some were schematics of a building.

Edward found his daughter hovering over a blueprint, not quite willing to actually touch to document. “You don’t leave these out,” she said slowly, trying to work out the shape of the reason he’d asked her to meet him in here.

“No,” he allowed. “We took control of an old iron mine a few years ago. It’s ideal for deep research- the climate is a bit hostile, but it manages any containment risk we may run into. Whoever runs it will have to live there, of course. Oswell was finished with these plans, so he passed them along.”

Marigold watched him, wary. “You weren’t planning to tell me this before.” It was said as a flat statement, an expectation. There had been no reason to bring a young girl with no real scientific acuity into such a sensitive enterprise, and they’d all known it implicitly. It hurt being cut out, certainly, but they had always seen- and more importantly, expressed -it as a protective measure.

Edward gave her a sad smile. “You didn’t seem interested, dear.” His jaw shifted in that way he had when he was skirting the truth. “And that was fair enough, letting you get on with your own life. But…this infection ties you to the project. No one else knows what’s happened, but eventually, they’ll need to. As soon as we understand what we’re dealing with.” He pulled out a plan from the pile, unfolding it. “Alexander mentioned that your memory retention has been improving, and you have your mother’s eye for security. If something-“

Marigold looked up sharply at the sound of approaching footsteps. “Alexander’s looking for something. Probably rifling through the waste bin again.”

Edward chided her as gently as he could manage. “It’s not like anyone had time to take baseline samples to compare what’s changed. Everything happened so quickly…”

A perfunctory knock came at the door, and Alexander let himself in. “I just got a call from the Paris lab. They’ve finished setting up. I told them we’re booking passage on the ferry for two days from now. We can pack light and have the rest sent later.” He looked up from his notes and seemed to brighten. “That’s for the new lab? You’ve decided, then.”

“Decided is a strong word, but it seems like I’m in for the ride,” Marigold said, a touch waspish. She frowned, pointed to a spot in a hallway that had been crossed out. “This goes nowhere. Why?”

Alexander drifted toward the desk and looked at where she was pointing on the blueprint. “You were serious about putting that in? I understand the need to keep quiet, but this…”

“It’s a contingency,” Edward said in a tight voice. “If James really did try to…” his voice faltered a moment. “He clearly felt secure enough to try it, and there was almost no reaction in the camp about it. I don’t wish to be caught flat-footed like that again.” He sighed. “The stakes are higher than I originally thought.”

Marigold looked at the blank space behind the marked wall on the plan, looked at the floor number. Whatever it was led below the very bottom of an already cavernous facility. “You’re hiding something in there? Why…” She stopped. four years of Swiss boarding school had taught her a thing or two about civil defense. “You’re building a bunker. In your remote lab.” She looked between the two men before her who seemed suddenly uncomfortable. “And you’re trying to hide it?”

Alexander grimaced. “It’s just something on the plans for now-” he started, but fell silent at Edward’s look. Alexander sighed. “I need to finish packing, if you’ll excuse me.” He stepped aware from the desk, and left the study.

Edward sighed, looking older than he had a moment ago. “He still wants to trust them,” he said wearily. “So do I, but I can’t ignore what’s right under my nose.”

“Why on earth would we need to go so far?” Marigold asked, watching her father closely. “The project seemed to be going well for all of you. Doctor Marcus seemed unhappy, yes, but that seemed normal enough, for him.”

“Oswell and I have…differing opinions on what the virus can be used for. Studying a virus and weaponizing it overlap so heavily that it seemed like there was no real, practical problem with the project at large.”

Marigold’s brow creased, and Edward waved his hand as if to clear the dark atmosphere from the study. “These are contingencies, at present, nothing more. I simply mean to be a bit more alert going forward. Harman should be returning from Arklay soon, and we’ll have a little more security in the future.”

Marigold could sense that her father desperately wanted to talk about anything else. “So, why has Alexander been raiding my toiletries bag? What’s the baseline even for?”

Edward seemed to sag with relief at the merciful change of topic. “Alexander’s been mapping its genome. Even if what happened to you can’t be replicated - and I think that might be true - he’ll be able to identify which switches get thrown when Sonnetroppe finds a viable host. That might be something we can work with.”

Marigold stared at her father, then bit back a laugh. “His Veronica project. Well, both of yours. You mean to tell me that he’s going to identify the intelligence gene by studying the most-“ she broke off, but still gave a bitter little laugh. “That’s a bit much to swallow.”

Edward fixed her with a sharp look. “No one thinks that of you, dear. Your brother always made it clear that you’re far cleverer than you let on- probably more so than is really good for you, to be honest. I really thought giving you some structure for the last few years would make it easier for you out in the world when you were grown.”

Marigold darted a wary look up from the plans at her father, and he made a small derisive sound in response. “Oh, come off it. I know I let you run a little too wild after…when your mother died. You looked after your brother like raiders would come carry him off if you stopped. I thought it would do you some good to get some distance.”

Marigold said nothing, but recalled how his researcher ‘friends’ had helped the decision to send her to a Swiss boarding school along. Prison does teach you to be a better class of criminal, she thought, so he’s not exactly wrong.

He reached out and tipped her chin up. “Besides, the family can only manage one genius per generation, anyhow. Too much ego, otherwise. There has to be a lot of muscle, a lot of cunning, to leverage that into something that’s actually usable. That’s your job.”

Marigold’s jaw tightened, mouth firming into a hard line. When she spoke again, her voice had grown small. “What’s going to happen to me?”

Edward took his daughter’s hand, gave it a squeeze. “You’re safe. We’ll monitor what we can - especially once we’re settled in Paris - and figure this out. It’s safer if you stay out of sight of the researchers, especially Stateside, but we will all work the problem out together.”

“You shouldn’t have to worry about me, not with everything ramping up the way it has been. I’ve been…” Marigold grimaced, thinking of all the trouble she’d gotten into. All that heartache.

Edward looked at her. “You aren’t a burden, dear. Do you not see how much you carry?” He laid the diagrams on the desk, beckoning her over to fold the young woman into a rare hug. “You simply need to learn to carry it properly. You are my daughter, and you are a part of this family. What does that mean?”

Marigold smiled, in spite of herself. “None of us are in this alone.”

December 1998 (alongside Chapter 14)

“All of us have been in this alone, haven’t we.”

Alexia glanced at her, still a touch rattled from their discussion. She shut the front door to the mansion behind her, and the two walked side by side across the covered courtyard towards the elevators. “I suppose. Why?”

“I’m just thinking of something my father said to me. I don’t think any of us came through whole, carrying all of this alone. No one’s been safe.” Marigold’s mouth was set in a taut grimace. “Speaking of which, you know where the safe room is, yes? Alfred’s probably not steady enough to fly for a while.” Somehow, she had come out of this nightmare strangely sheltered, in a twisted way. She’d had people protecting her, some knowingly, some…less so. Don’t think that you can manage this, Annette’s voice rang in her memory.

Alexia shook her head. “Safety is relatively for the next few days, I think. I know of it, but not how to access it.” The faint worry line between Alexia’s brows deepened. “I don’t like this. No one felt they needed to share critical emergency protocol with me before. Grayson’s down there, and there are people down there. I don’t like it. Are you sure you should go alone? The infestation’s quite heavy.”

After a moment's contemplation, Alexia added, “Also, Grayson’s mentioned that the head of maintenance stole data when he was locked down in the stasis room. Donald McNally stole data and locked him down there before I woke. I’m not sure where he is, which means he’s staying away from the hyphae. He’s about…actually, your age. Large Scottish man, I believe.” Alexia frowned. “Grayson liked him, but, well, you know how trusting he is. I never liked him.”

“You don’t like - no, wait.” Marigold stopped herself. Alexia wasn’t fond of most people, but she was telling her about this man specifically for a reason. “What was the matter?”

“He used to scare me, before. There’s something wrong with a man who can seem that jolly without it touching his eyes. Now he’s just a man, but…if Grayson is worried about someone, they’ve gone very visibly rotten.”

Marigold fished a gaiter mask out from under her collar and slipped it up over her nose and mouth. “I’ll keep my face covered, then. Just to be safe.”

Alexia sighed. “You said that you were pregnant. How can you be sure it wasn’t a false positive? Those patches are strong- they would have kept you fully viral for…”

“Three weeks. I’m lucky I caught it when I did, the patches started about 10 days later. And… there have been other indicators.” Marigold fidgeted with the cuffs of her coat.

“How far along? Hypothetically speaking. If you find the infirmary, you should find more tests, by the way. They’re more accurate than the store-bought variety, from what I remember. No one was willing to risk a false negative during a season where no one could fly out.” She paused. “Bring as many as you can find back, you can get statistically significant results.”

“Six weeks, as far as I can tell.” Marigold's face was grim. “I haven’t let myself dwell on it. I’ve barely processed that it happened at all.”

Alexia nodded. “You said that’s an issue for later, and I happen to agree. We are going to revisit that bit of whiplash when the time comes. You’ve dealt with an outbreak? The corridors are rather narrow.”

Marigold waggled her hand in a non-commital gesture. “Only the edges of an outbreak. They really didn’t want Umbrella to know I’d survived Arklay. I don’t either. The zombies don’t notice me, exactly.” She squared her shoulders. “I can fight, If I must, but I may be able to just walk through.” She huffed. “I can maintain a bit of control on a few at a time. It’s not a comfortable thing to be aware of, to be frank. Someone showed me something called Thriller after Raccoon City. Let’s just say it wasn’t appreciated.”

Alexia gave a sharp, nervous laugh. “Less Michael Jackson, more Ellen Ripley, with that look. Here,” gives a copy of her keycard. “Hold tight to that, and avoid the ants. They’re…active. He’s…still sealed in Grandfather’s old lab. I’d be worried otherwise, as he’s rather venomous. If anything goes wrong, ‘knock’ as you did earlier. What did you do?”

Marigold tugged her mask down, licking her lips and rubbing the tips of her fingers across them before replicating the touch on one of a mass of hyphae in the hallway, across from the elevator. Alexia shuddered a little, both at the sensation and the sight of the hyphae withering into ashy nubs. Marigold grins at her. “That’s precisely the face I made. I’m sure of it.” She chuckled a little. “Oh, I missed our strange little family. No one else truly gets this.”

Book 3 of The Calendula Chronicles.

Story synopsis: Albert Wesker molded his captive into the perfect, pliable bait for taking out Rockfort Island's paramilitary facility, and cracking open the Ashford family’s secrets. But who’s really in control, once chaos breaks out?

The stakes have never been higher for Marigold, but she may not be fast enough to save everyone.

Book 3 of the Calendula Chronicles series. Written as the other side of The Antarctica Incident.

Want to catch up? The story's a ways ahead on AO3

Chapter summary: Alexia and Marigold move from one extremely awkward topic to the BOW in the room. Meanwhile, Donald McNally prepares for guests.

64.media.tumblr.com

Alexia’s eyes hardened. “Did you know?”

“Know what?”

“How we were made. Alfred found his notes on his Veronica project. Did you know?”

Marigold blinked at her. “No…not the details,” she said slowly. “Your father-”

“He’s not our father,” Alexia hissed. Under Marigold’s grip, Alexia’s hand had tightened, and begun to grow hot.

Marigold stared at her niece, consciously keeping her grip firm on Alexia’s arm. For a moment, Marigold processed her words, then said, “You actually mean that, don’t you.”

Alexia looked back at her, getting frustrated - but the heat in her hand had stopped growing. “Auntie, we were a project. Alfred was a byproduct - you saw how Alexander barely even gave him the time of day. It broke him, Auntie. I know you liked to play at being stupid for the board, but you must have known something.”

Marigold sighed. “I knew your grandfather was helping him with the Veronica project, before…before. I wasn’t involved at all until after I was infected.”

Alexia stilled. “Until after?” There was a dangerous pitch in her voice.

Marigold held steady. If Alexia let her impulses take over to lash out, things would get ugly, but this would be the very worst time to show fear. “Alexia. I can understand being angry, but remember that we both have reasons to be angry. You obviously used the Mold in T-Veronica, and I’m clearly missing quite a bit of context. Do you really want to find out first-hand why Grayson’s mother decided to leave me alone, rather than go on with her plan to kill the messenger? I can handle that sort of pain, but we’d both regret it. Just because I’m not flammable doesn’t mean you wouldn't burn.”

Alexia’s eyes widened. “Are you threatening me?”

“No. I told your brother I wouldn’t hurt you when he found out I knew you’d…” Marigold looked away, composing herself. “That I knew. He needed to hear it. I meant that. But I can’t help what my blood will do to you if you decide to spill it on a whim. Either you can let me tell you what I know, or this ends badly for everyone.” Marigold looked pointedly at the arm in her grasp to underline her meaning. “You’ll have to learn to control your temper much more, now. It’s not an easy thing- you know I say this from experience. People are so much more fragile than you realize.”

Alexia gaped openly at her aunt’s warning, and Marigold pursed her lips. “Alexia, I was never supposed to be involved at all. I only knew anything when they realized they could get a comparative baseline for what the virus changed. I can’t imagine Veronica’s genetic material was in pristine condition after all this time - I thought they were using my samples like a map - like flipping switches in a breaker box for memory retention, stronger immune system, that sort of thing.”

Alexia was quiet for a moment. “They…he did, after a fashion. According to his research notes. Not quite the way you’re thinking, but…you really didn’t know.”

Marigold cocked her head, thinking. “He didn’t tell anyone about you two until you were over a year old - I got the birth announcement a week after I got back from that horrid Romania trip - the first time my virus went active in a way that truly worried me. Knowing that we weren’t going to die out was a lifeline for me at the time. I didn’t ask questions.”

“Why the hell not?”

Marigold shrugged. “Habit, mostly. It was always safer for the family if I couldn’t be tricked into telling someone about the work. Did Alfred tell you what I did on Rockfort? To the soldier?”

“He…said you bit someone.”

“I’ve only done that to three people.” Marigold winced at the memory. “When the virus isn’t already involved, there’s a sharp paralimbic mutation that increases suggestibility and creates a connection. It’s more subtle when it’s just something like sharing drinks. It’s also why I stayed in corporate for as long as I did. If Spencer was willing to do that to me without cause, I needed to be ready to..divest him of his influence should he go off the deep end.” Marigold paused. “I was lucky an old girlfriend at the Raccoon City office drove me down to the mansion, at least, even though the rest of it was a disaster. I was able to get her to tell him to run, and then have her do the same. It did my head in, pushing that through my medication. That’s why I stayed away from it after I came back- it was offered a few times, but I couldn’t let myself be weak like that again. Not when it counted.”

Alexia started to retorted, then stopped herself with a slow smile. “So you do understand,” she said, almost to herself. “Even if you don’t want to. Refusing to be a mere tool in someone else’s game.”

Empathy was still not Alexia’s strongest trait, but they were pointed in the same direction again. That had to count for something. Marigold took a deep breath and let it out. “So just how did it come to pass that my little brother, who I practically hand-raised been screaming in a basement for the last fifteen years?”

Alexia finally looked away. “The test went badly. We couldn’t contain him. There…wasn’t any pain.”

“There’s almost nothing but pain, Alexia. I can still feel it. He knows your names.” Marigold pulled her hand away. “He still knows mine. It’s almost a mercy that this place will burn.”

They both went quiet again. Marigold looked up, spotting the old messer blade mounted on the wall. “That used to be in my father’s office,” she said distantly. “I used to look at it all the time. It wasn’t mine to touch, even if your- if Alexander showed no interest.” She smiled a little. “It was still sharp back then. I bet it still is.” Her eyes wandered to the bookcase, and her heart nearly stopped.

She’d told Alexander that she wanted to set up a Teig O’Kane protocol on her last visit to the family. And the book she was looking at didn’t belong there.

Marigold stood suddenly, crossing over to the bookcase. On the third shelf was a leatherbound book that was distinctly out of place amongst the textbooks and ledgers- “Irish Fairy Tales and Folklore of the Isles.” She pulled it out from the shelf- and an envelope fell out.

She froze a moment, glancing at Alexia, who looked equally bewildered- she hadn’t put this here. Marigold bent and picked the envelope up, pulling out a single page. “Oh.”

“What is it?” Alexia looked wary.

“I…it’s something we need. Something Alexander- both of you, actually- were working on.” She looked up at Alexia. “I need to find his work- there’s questions I need answered- but this is an immediate problem that we need to deal with. Do you know about the bunker?”

Alexia frowned. “I know it exists, but not how to get in. Alexander thought it was frivolous.”

Marigold actually chuckled. “Father - your grandfather - started to see the threat, after my accident. They didn’t see eye to eye on the matter, so he started walking me through the plans almost as soon as I could get out of bed again. I’ll need to find the access codes, but I can open everything before it.” She folded the letter in two and slipped it into her pocket. She turned to look at the blade mounted on the wall, and crossed the room to it. “I’ll have go into the facility, then. It will take some time to get everything, and I need you to keep an eye on your brother until I get back.

Alexia stood, clearly relieved to no longer be reliving the past. “Get yourself ready, then- I have a spare access card in my room. I can make you a copy.”

Don cut the transmission. His new contact was an outfit, HCF, led by an ex-Umbrella man. On the one hand, someone smart enough to get out when Umbrella was starting to crumble would be hard to put one over on, especially if things went sour. On the other, it meant that they’d hardly bat an eye at his price, nor what it took for him to keep the place from falling down around their ears.

And make no mistake: keeping Spencer from demolishing the place once the outbreak was fully entrenched would be a feat in itself. He grimaced as he got up from his surveillance station. The cold mingled with age setting into his bones reminded him once again that he was no longer the strapping young man who’d arrived here decades ago. To think that a few short months ago, his biggest concern had been getting out before Spencer had him liquidated for a younger model of Monitor.

Don hadn’t been idle this past year. Alfred had granted him temporary access to the facility’s plans for “repairs” before taking off for Rockfort. Looking over the plans, there were secret passages and access points between the mansion and this level that only the family seemed to know about. Before he’d had access to this level, they’d only been a scant part of a backup plan, an emergency escape route in case he ever needed to twist Alfred Ashford’s arm for a way out of this place before his time was up. But now…

Now things had got interesting. Potentially, they’d also become incredibly lucrative. But the rewards involved carried with it the kind of risk that the average person didn’t come back from. Especially since the…growths coming from the walls had some sort of sensory functionality to them. He’d been so very careful to avoid them, so far. Just because Alexia had been more competent than her brother didn’t suggest that she had a shred more mercy.

He remembered her as a reedy, skittish little thing who’d nonetheless shown a flair for lab administration. Sometime in 1983, when Alexander had vanished, her eyes had lost that skittishness in a situation where it should have been made worse, replaced by something sharp, barbed. The old part of him, that Umbrella had sought out and bade him to keep concealed, instinctively recognized someone who’d had blood on their hands, and had deemed that fact to be an acceptable one.

He’d kept his distance.

The average person with the average moral compass might balk at the cold calculations required to keep this place intact a little while longer, Don thought. Yesterday, he’d spotted a group of maintenance workers holed up in a supply room on the cameras. There wasn’t quite a dozen of them, most of them were middle-aged, worn down. He’d trained most of them himself. They’d trust Don, and would be led where he told them to go.

There was enough to get the germ of a plan in place.

It was amazing what could be accomplished when you were willing to cut a few throats on the way, get your hands dirty. Nosferatu itself would be enough to peak Lord Spencer’s interest for a bit, staying his hand.

HCF would be here in just a few hours - just long enough to **set up **the little sweetener he’d been thinking over, to keep the old man from blowing the place up. From the sound of it, the mercenary outfit had thrown plenty of meat into the grinder at Rockfort Island, and allegedly at Raccoon City before that. Surely they’d be able to spare a little more.

The maintenance workers had been lured down like a pack of fearful, hungry stray dogs. They’d been so grateful to Don for sharing his secured living space, a lab next to his surveillance room set up with blankets and food. They’d been even happier to see the case of Chilean wine he’d scavenged. “Let’s see if this is still any good - might as well drink to the end of the world while we wait for rescue, eh?” Those working in the transport facility had an appreciation for gallows humour. They’d laughed merrily, and drank their fill.

The drugged wine had done its work. Stretching his weary muscles, he grabbed a work cart to select the first of many, whistling a jaunty tune.

Book 3 of The Calendula Chronicles.

Story synopsis: Albert Wesker molded his captive into the perfect, pliable bait for taking out Rockfort Island's paramilitary facility, and cracking open the Ashford family’s secrets. But who’s really in control, once chaos breaks out?

The stakes have never been higher for Marigold, but she may not be fast enough to save everyone.

Book 3 of the Calendula Chronicles series. Written as the other side of The Antarctica Incident.

Want to catch up? The story's a ways ahead on AO3

Chapter summary: Somebody has some explaining to do.

Alan Green winced as his wife seemed to materialize from nowhere to slam the heavy phone down in front of him. “You need to call her back.”

Alan frowned at his wife of nearly thirty years. “Poppy Higgins? And say what, exactly?”

Gemma held firm. “She may not hear anything, but she knows something’s up, just as much as I do. Why are you avoiding her?”

“Love-”

“Don’t start with that. That woman had been through hell since her father died, and she still managed to trust us enough to make sure you had a soft landing. Even after what your cousin tried to do.”

“Maxwell? What’s he got to - no, nevermind that.” He shook his head. Maxwell’s health had recovered somewhat some years back, but he’d never quite recovered. They’d fallen out of touch ages ago. “Bringing Poppy into this won’t make the situation any easier, Gemma.”

“Do you know that? Poppy knows how to deal with the family. Whatever you’re doing, odds are that she’s going to have to clean up after your little adventure.” She spat out the last word.

Alan stared at her, mind churning. Gemma had a point. Wesker was being tight-lipped about whatever was happening down at Rockfort, and that wasn’t a good sign. Mark had insinuated that he was not to lose the ‘asset’- even belligerent, Marigold’s condition had Progenitor written all over it, in a way that actually worked, and had remained stable. The potential of that was immeasurable.

The odds were high that Marigold was still trying to save her brother’s children- misanthropic and temperamental creatures that they were. Alan had been one of the few to know just how much she had doted on them - someone had to cover her tracks when she traveled down to visit, and she had always been adamant that they stay covered. Based on the report, she’d gotten her nephew out of Rockfort, and was attempting the same with her niece.

Whatever Alexia had been doing had gone wrong, somehow, given how Alexander had simply vanished. Alan could feel it in his bones. Alexander had been all the family Marigold had left for years. If that were the case…

Alan felt his mouth go dry. “I think you’re right,” he said slowly, feeling the blood drain from his face. “We’re in over our heads on this.” As much as he didn’t want to deal with Poppy’s anger, nor her grief, no one else had a better handle on the family dynamics. He reached for the telephone.

Alexia walked through Marigold's room- the bed had been slept in recently- into the adjoining bathroom. It had been designed, more than most, with decontamination in mind. In the shower hung a drying uniform from the mercenary outfit that had attacked Rockfort, a Kevlar vest sitting on the floor next to it.

Privacy was a luxury for people who had time.

Marigold herself was sitting in the bath, immersed to her shoulders in steaming, cloudy water with a eucalyptus scent. She cracked her eyes open and rolled her head towards Alexia at the sound of the door opening, giving her a wan smile. “Hello,” she said in a voice roughened by sleep and the exhaustion that hadn’t managed to leave her yet. “Is that Veronica’s dress? It looks good on you. I suppose today counts as your debut. I didn’t have the coloring to pull it off back when it was my turn.” There was a touch of the gentle amusement that her aunt had always spoken to them with when they were children.

Alexia looked around, then pulled the chair by the door over to the bath. She sat, finally taking a long, critical look at the older woman.

Marigold did look smaller now, which might have been a function of her own growth. She and Alexia had similar colouring- pale, flaxen-haired, though with Marigold it was nearly a Scandinavian white- and it hadn’t been unusual for people to assume she was an elder cousin to Alexia. That dynamic had shifted, in that they might have been easily mistaken for sisters- twins even.

The hollow look in Marigold’s eyes was new. But so was the trail of dark marks along the line of her neck, on her shoulders, and disappearing down under the water.

Marigold, with obvious resignation, watched Alexia as the realization bloomed on her face- indignation, fury, finally resolving into a point of interest she could deal with in front of her. “You always healed so fast. How recent is all of this?”

“Days, I think. They’ve been lingering longer over the last few weeks. It’s why I tolerated the hormone patches.” She grimaced a little. “I’d rather eat glass than have this conversation, but it needs to happen. I won’t be blackmailed over something my libido spent six weeks kicking me in the throat over after I woke.”

“Oh..oh.” Alexia fidgeted in her seat, recalling the enthusiasm with which she had…greeted… Grayson on waking. And again later, when they have come back up into the house. Six weeks? Alexia hadn’t waited six minutes after waking. She firmly stepped on that particular thought, flushing a deep red.

Marigold looked at her with a steady eye, choosing mercy. “I suppose that part comes from Sonnetroppe. The medication tamped that down for years - the appetites - but it made me too weak to fight properly when they cornered me in ‘81. If that one woman hadn’t put an end to the whole circus by telling them I was sterile, I think things would have been so much worse.”

Alexia went cold. “What woman.”

Marigold looked away. “I was ready to burn the world down for a little while, when I was told you and your father had died. I thought Spencer had…I can’t imagine what it would have done to Grayson.” Marigold leveled a flat, hard look at Alexia. “Annette Fletcher is dead. I made a friend who saw it happen. It’s not like anyone can bring them back, can they.” That last part was said in a sharp tone, pain threatening to crumple Marigold's smooth features.

It threw cold water on the embers of Alexia’s jealous anger over how Grayson had spent the last few years. Alfred was right. Marigold knew about Alexander, and that knowledge was slowly eating away at her.

Alexia took a deep breath. Killing Alexander had freed her from her childish fears, proving to herself that the thugs working in the facility down below weren’t something to be afraid of. That Umbrella itself could be made to bend, if need be. By the time Alfred had found out how they’d been made, she’d been one lit match away from freeing him from the weight of his own towering paranoia anyhow. Auntie Marigold had always been the family’s bulwark against outside interference, and without her, Alexander had seen enemies everywhere.

Something else Marigold had said snagged in her mind. “You told Alfred that you were running out of time, but you didn’t tell him why. I think I need to know what happened since Arklay.”

Marigold sighed. “I know you do. I’ll tell you what I can.”

Marigold talked.

Eventually, the water cooled, and Marigold called for a break to get out and find a robe. They went into Alexander’s old study, seating themselves on the sofa. Grayson had left a note for Alexia before going down into the facility, letting her know that there were fresh beignets in the kitchen for her. Alexia had retrieved the platter for the two of them, as well as the box of toffees placed conspicuously next to them, engrossed in the tale. “So you convinced them to go down into Raccoon City; that’s where you got those journals.”

”And ran my field tests. I didn’t share anywhere near the full scope of what I was looking for, obviously. There was only the combat one that they were really aware of, but G-Virus has a very loud, shrill quality to it. I don’t know how else to describe it. As soon as Birkin injected himself - “

“No!” Alexia was clearly trying not to laugh around a mouthful of beignet, looking more like a girl at a slumber party. Marigold had mentioned it earlier, but Alexia clearly hadn’t really lingered on that fact at the time. “Why would he do that?”

“Why did you?”

“I gave myself time to bond to it!” Alexia argued, as if that explained everything.

“I think he tried to sell it directly to the government, and Umbrella, well, objected. With bullets. I wasn’t prepared for that- felt like being possessed.” Marigold shivered at the memory. “I wanted to hurt him for that. For being involved in the whole sordid thing.” She smiled a little at the memory. “So I did. Irons didn’t recognize me at first, but he likely had nightmares for the rest of his very short life after I made him connect me to their lab. The least I could do was to let her know I was about to play ‘break the idiot’ for twenty minutes so she could get a few things to slow the spread.”

Alexia’s face darkened. “Irons? I’ve met him.”

“Also dead, dear. Someone else’s handiwork, quite brutal from the sounds of it.” Marigold frowned. “The man was a predator, but I had to make do. Did something happen? I…you mentioned that you spent some time at Arklay.”

“I was studying a mutated plant there in ‘83 - there should be a cutting of it in the facility if it survived. Irons pulled Grayson over when he was taking me to see a film. Nothing happened, but…” Alexia grimaced. “Only because he realized who I was.”

Marigold stared at her, then drew the younger girl into a sudden, careful hug, holding her firm when Alexia flailed briefly before settling awkwardly into the embrace. “You’re still a lot stronger than I am, Auntie,” Alexia chuckled in a slightly breathless voice.

Marigold pulled back, letting Alexia go, but still reached forward and squeezed her hand while smoothing the hair out of Alexia’s face with the other. “I’m sorry. I’ve missed so much. I do know that Irons is dead, and we’re both here. Shall I continue?” She watched Alexia closely, who nodded, clearly eager to be rid of the memory. “I…Oh, it’s always so uncomfortable to try to put these things into words.” She huffed a little at the memory. Finding the words for what she’d done made it sound like a bad acid trip. “It turns out that G-Virus can be leveraged into a very nice little figurative satellite phone, if you keep the call short.” Marigold snorted. “I doubt it can be done again - I pushed hard enough that my eyes finally mutated like they always threatened to do under medication. But…activating the Teig O’Kane protocol was worth it.” Marigold’s smile was sharp, merciless. “When I got back, I let them feel in control of the situation…and waited.”

Alexia smiled back, a little uncertain. “Whatever for? Why not leave? Why work with someone who did that to -” Alexia looked away, her face schooled into a mask. The girl was in turmoil, to Marigold’s practiced eye.

“Between Raccoon City and Teig O’Kane, Spencer lost a lot of resources, and he’s distracted trying to hold the rest together. He - Wesker - was quite happy to keep me off of Umbrella’s radar while I got my bearings.”

“You worked with him.”

“He seemed very eager to dismantle Spencer. There’s some history there, I think. And..he seems to have had a fixation.” Marigold felt her face shift into an uncomfortable grimace at the euphemistic phrasing.

“On Spencer.” Alexia said, dubious. Please don’t make me spell this out, Marigold pleaded silently.

“Yes…not only Spencer though. He caught on to what I did to Doctor Marcus when he still worked for him.” Marigold let go of Alexia, hands curling into loose balls. “So long as he was distracted from asking questions about the family, I could handle it. I could use it. So long as he, they, didn’t target you.” Marigold made a frustrated sound. “But in the end, they still did. I did what I had to.” She frowned. “Your brother isn’t well. Surely you’ve noticed.”

Alexia started to speak, then closed her mouth. Bless her, the girl was trying so very hard to be kind. “I’ve been trying to triage the situation as a whole. I thought he was just exhausted. The bullet wound didn’t help.”

Marigold exhaled a long, frustrated breath through her nose. “Of course. Yes, but also no. I think there’s more going on there.”

Alexia blinked, then waved it away. “Teig O’Kane. That’s your code for hiding little caches. What does it mean here?”

“Not caches, in that sense,” Marigold replied. “Did you never get a look at my notes?”

“Only the physical data,” Alexia said sourly. “I wasn’t allowed near anything deemed political - “ Alexia stopped, darting a look at Marigold. She’d realized she’d strayed too close to a topic she very much didn’t want to open.

They’d have to, and soon, but not yet. Marigold sighed. “It means ‘where the bodies are buried’. The one in Devon is a list of names, people I’ve influenced.”

Alexia made a face. “Your mutagenic saliva. Alfred mentioned the airfield. He found it unsettling.”

Marigold shuddered. “He should. That was rough work, and I hate how much it looks like…well. When the virus isn’t already involved, it’s much easier to share a drink, or a cigarette. Sometimes a little more.” She pinked a little. “With the virus involved beforehand…well, it always was a territorial little bastard. I didn’t expect to end up linked like that. I certainly didn’t expect that I’d have to let go as much as I did before it started to have an effect on him. It kept him from prying enough that I could hide the journals.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “If I hadn’t run out of pills in November, I probably would be healing normally. He doesn’t know, Alexia.”

Alexia stared at her, processing her words. “Are you pregnant?”

Book 3 of The Calendula Chronicles.

Story synopsis: Albert Wesker molded his captive into the perfect, pliable bait for taking out Rockfort Island's paramilitary facility, and cracking open the Ashford family’s secrets. But who’s really in control, once chaos breaks out?

The stakes have never been higher for Marigold, but she may not be fast enough to save everyone.

Book 3 of the Calendula Chronicles series. Written as the other side of The Antarctica Incident.

Want to catch up? The story's a ways ahead on AO3

Chapter summary: Alexia finds out what happened on Rockfort Island.

Takes place alongside: Chapter 11

When Alexia and Alfred had been small, Marigold had told them stories of their German grandmother, Liesel. “Her family had been old Prussian blood, but the Great War had left them with little else but their name. People began to get desperate as things got bad again. You wouldn’t expect a woman of her station to be as good a seamstress as she was, but it’s amazing what she managed to smuggle out when they finally fled. Papers, jewelry, money…people say that they fled with only the clothes on their backs, and it’s true. But they were also prepared to do so and survive what came after. She always seemed to know absolutely everyone. When I grew up, I discovered that really wasn’t far off the mark.”

Alfred had loved little war stories like that, although Scott had been a better source of them, having actually served himself. But when Marigold had leaned down and torn the false backings from the cargo pockets on the shins of her military fatigues, Alexia realized that, for her aunt, they hadn’t been mere stories, but her some of her earliest lessons.

Sewn into those smugglers’ pockets had been three old, cracked leather diaries, small and thin enough to fit in a pocket. Marigold had hidden them from her keepers, and smuggled them in with her, Alexia had realized. Marigold had held them out to Alexia with a tremulous hand until Alexia had stepped forward to take them. The older woman had almost seemed to sag in relief to be rid of them. “I talked them into letting me retrieve documents, and found these. They’re Spencer’s accounts of the early days. No one else knows they exist. The measures I had to take…” Marigold had trailed off then, but her eyes had held Alexia’s, imploring. “I couldn’t trust that I had privacy, but I managed to hide these when I came across them. I’ve read them. You must. Use what you have to…this is what you’re up against. Promise me you’ll read them.”

“I will.” Alexia said, feeling numb. The words had the weight of an oath. Marigold had pressed them into her hands as if Alexia had the last seat out of Antarctica before it fell…and she realized that with the T-Virus in Alfred’s wake, that day was uncomfortably close. She took the diaries in both hands to still any tremors that might manifest in herself, face solemn. “Auntie…I will. You can rest now. And I’ll do the same.”

That had been hours ago. Alexia had cleaned up, broken up yet another spat between Alfred and Grayson (it had been significantly easier back when neither of them were armed, but then again, so was she), and then taken her time in breaking in her bed with Grayson. She’d fallen into a sound, satisfied sleep.

Grayson had gone by the time she had awoke. The journals were still on her vanity. Auntie Marigold had clung to these with desperate determination. She flipped open the first of them, bookmarked with short, annotated Post-Its by Marigold. A quick scan of these little summaries suggested…

Ah. Lord Spencer would hardly be pleased to learn of her return, then. The outbreak Grayson had spoken of in Raccoon City had had reprecussions everywhere.

There were little mentions of her ‘network’ throughout. Alexia had once thought it to be a bland corporate thing, but as she got older, she’d noticed that word come into many conversations surrounding Marigold’s condition. Here, she had placed notes next to specific names, and assigned them what could only be a specific code: Bailey, Marcus, various executives.

Auntie Marigold hadn’t come with a plan, exactly. But she’d come bearing tools, ready for deployment.

And she’d also been afraid. Whatever had stalked her from the basement of Arklay (oh, that would rankle for some time now) was still out there.

Which meant that she needed to know what Alfred had seen on Rockfort. What her aunt wasn’t saying.

Alexia sighed. Perhaps it was for the best that she hadn’t killed the imbecile on the spot.

~

“He’s still alive, then.”

Alfred turned in his armchair at the sound of her voice. He’d fallen asleep there once Grayson had bandaged his wounded leg. “Yes,” he replied, looking warily pleased that she was speaking with him again. “That lab is still sealed. I thought he would starve for a while, but he never did. I’m told that the facility workers gave him a penny dreadful nickname when he wouldn’t stop howling.” Alfred looked at the books in her hand. “What-”

“She smuggled these out with her. Grandmother Liesel’s lessons, I believe.” Alexia said, brows knitted together. “I don’t know how she got her hands on Spencer’s old diaries, but they confirm quite a bit. Some of her notes, though…” Alexia sighed. “I wish I’d been able to go over her old notes at some point. I have a feeling this would make more sense.”

Alexia reached, with her hyphae. In the BOW lab, a creature with a similar virus as hers still lived. She shuddered. It was like no time had passed at all. “There are people down there. Did Grayson- “

“Stepped out, I assume. He’ll be fine.” Alfred said, almost shortly. He looked at her. “You spoke with Marigold, then?”

Alexia pursed her lips, then let it go, for now. She’d been dealing with Alfred’s old petty jealousy towards Grayson since he arrived, and it was wearing thin. “Not for long. She seemed…agitated over what happened. Cryptic. I let her rest. I don’t think she knows about Alexander yet- Auntie didn’t say-“

“She knows.” Alfred said, voice flat. “She would have come down with me to see you if she hadn’t. She knew about you both. Something about sensing it, like a…viral empathy, she called it. Callie had a panic attack at the elevator when I tried to bring her down with me, because of it.” He looked away.

Like the hyphae, but also not. Interesting. Alexia held up the pEpsilon card. “I knew they’d weaponize this eventually. What do you know?”

Alfred stared at her. His eyes were bloodshot, with dark, heavy circles under them. He had hardly slept in days, she realized. Still, he reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew and small disk drive. “Enough. She told me much of it on the flight, and I can show you the rest.”

Alfred spoke while he loaded up the video files he had brought over. All the while he spoke - the phone call that summer, the radio silence following. The invasion by HCF. They had been trying to use the re-captured ‘specimen’ as a weapon, and there had been a moment where he almost fell into the trap - but she turned on them as soon as she managed to resurface from the drug cocktail. “Auntie…bit a man, near the jet,” Alfred said, suddenly uncomfortable. “She seemed to know what she was doing. From what she was saying, it was a concern…before. It only took a moment before she was able to turn him loose on the rest of their forces in command.” Alfred looked at Alexia. “It sowed enough chaos that I could detonate the labs there. It will take them time to regroup.”

“Long enough for an evacuation,” Alexia said, distantly. She thought back to those little coded notes, paired with names. “She bit him?”

“Yes,” Alfred said, pulling up the video. “She seemed uncomfortable about it when she was lucid, but…well, look.” He pressed play on the video. “If we hadn’t learned to sign back then, I don’t know what might have happened.”

The video feed was silent, but Marigold had worked out that she could communicate with anyone watching the camera feed. Marigold had avoided attaching a name to the man who had done this to her, but she had left enough context clues in their short conversation. Alexia had been to Arklay before for a short research trip; long enough to recognize the man on the screen. “Is that…” she stared, then snickered. “I have a feeling this is going to be the second-funniest thing I’ve come across today.”

“Yes. He transferred to the Intelligence Department a few years ago. He led a team down to Arklay for combat data once it was clear that the facility was lost. They reported him dead.” Alfred rolled his eyes. “Callie said that she verified it with three different people before she tried to leave Raccoon City. Getting skewered through the chest wasn’t enough, apparently.”

“What -” Alexia began to say, but the video showed him beginning to drift to a place she recognized within the Matilda. She barked a short laugh. “No.” Even if he had infected himself, Alexia had the numbers for how much force Marigold usually hit that particular wall Dr. Albert Wesker had positioned himself in front of.

“It gets so much better,” Alfred said with barely suppressed glee. They watched the rest in silence, Alexia wincing when the grainy woman on the screen leaned down and seemed to tear into her victim’s throat. “So that’s where all the blood came from.” She frowned. “He should have been pulverized. Did she say what- “

“Only that ‘he was still in her head’ when she held him down, and that he regenerated like a starfish. I…” Alfred looked lost for a moment, eyes unfocused. “I couldn’t follow. Somehow she kept him from getting out of…that.” The crows suddenly exploded into the frame as Marigold left it. “They were hungry enough that he’s likely not following for a while.”

Alexia kept watching the screen until the video ran down, and the screen went black. “So…why is she so afraid of him?” Marigold had temporarily abandoned herself, to position herself for that attack, and there had been something deeply personal about it.

Not an immediate issue, she’d said…

When Marigold had visited her at Oxford during Alexia’s studies, she’d garnered a lot of unsolicited attention from her older male classmates. Marigold had brushed it off, though she’d kept a wary eye on her surroundings while out in public. Alexia knew that Marigold could easily overpower anyone who posed a problem, back then, even though she had elevated conflict avoidance to an art form.

What would happen if she couldn’t fight? Marigold hadn’t said, but Alexia was beginning to wonder. Alfred, in his clearly frail state, had gotten an edited version.

Discomfort be damned. It was time to find out what was waiting for them out there.

She’d need all the information she could get if she had to fortify their little keep for long enough to prepare their exit.

Alfred watched Alexia leave the room, his head swimming. He’d built up the moment of her awakening so much in his mind. Her distance seemed sharper than before. The virus had made her stronger as she slept, while also delivering eldritch weapons to use at a whim.

He’d taken too many pills to stay alert during the attack, and they were wearing off hard. Alfred had also accepted the emergency shot Marigold had given him, there in the garden. He’d settled for a bit, but the tremors were slowly returning. Trying to drink himself into a dreamless sleep had only left him feeling the full force of the hangover. Whatever Marigold had sensed in him (you’ve been in the roses), it was doing its own damage.

Did you really think it would get any better? ‘Alexia’s’ voice whispered in his head. She left you to fend for yourself. At least I never left. I kept us safe, didn’t I?

Alfred groaned, only peripherally aware of the nature of the argument he found himself in. “She’s here. She only just woke. I need to rest. Aunt Callie told me as much.”

Book 3 of The Calendula Chronicles.

Story synopsis: Albert Wesker molded his captive into the perfect, pliable bait for taking out Rockfort Island's paramilitary facility, and cracking open the Ashford family’s secrets. But who’s really in control, once chaos breaks out?

The stakes have never been higher for Marigold, but she may not be fast enough to save everyone.

Book 3 of the Calendula Chronicles series. Written as the other side of The Antarctica Incident.

Want to catch up? The story's a ways ahead on AO3

Chapter summary: Alexia learns what happened.

Takes place alongside: Chapter 9

They came to the lifts, and Alfred began reaching for his keycard. After patting his jacket a few times, he began to look panicked - until Marigold reached into her pocket and produced the one she’d found. “This one was in the jet,” she said. “In my coat. Best not to leave it behind.”

Alfred looked uncertain, but accepted it, and fed it into the card reader. “We need to go down, almost to the bottom,” he said. “She’ll be…Aunt Callie, are you alright? We have to move.”

Marigold had started breathing hard, and appeared all but ready to bolt. “He’s screaming,” she whispered. Her body had gone rigid, a mechanism that had been borne out of a need to not cause damage if caught off guard. When he was a child, his aunt had always frozen up a little when he’d hugged her. “Has he been screaming this whole time?”

Alfred stilled, realizing what her words meant. Alfred had to get down there. Right now. But he also knew exactly what was down there. Who was down there. And how they got there.

And in a sense, so did Aunt Callie. Maybe in a truer sense than anyone, given her story, but she didn’t know the details. She hadn’t been there. “It’s safe,” he said, staring at the floor. We couldn’t…he’s sealed. You don’t have to see.”

Marigold remained locked in place. “Proximity. Not line of sight. Please. I don’t think I can handle it yet.”

Alfred blinked. She must have been in much worse shape than he’d realized. She’d always hid her pain if she could, before. “I can let you off at the mansion level, and then go back. You can rest there.” Alfred paused. “She’ll be happy to see you, I think.”

Marigold finally relaxed enough for them to get into the lift and she visibly attempted to smile. The tremors in her hands had returned, and her expression looked wan, exhausted. “I’ll be happy to see her too.”

“Something new came here when you arrived. Someone. Who came back with you from Rockfort?” Alexia said to her brother, voice tight and as low as she could manage. They had just stepped in the front door of the mansion, and Grayson - hers - had finally stepped out of earshot to put his parka away. He’d been overwhelmed when she showed him T-Veronica. If Alfred had brought something with him from Rockfort, she wanted to know its nature now, not when it was breaking down the doors.

Alfred was looking, for lack of a better term, like a whipped dog. Good, Alexia thought, sour. He’d been so desperate to have something over Grayson that she’d nearly lost him entirely. What little color he’d had in his face had drained away. He looked at her sidelong, glancing to Grayson’s back to make sure he wasn’t overhead. “That was Aunt Callie.”

Alexia stilled. “She died. Father said…”

“…that she was gone. From what she says, almost the same way you were. Not dead.” Alfred’s voice had dropped to a bleak monotone. “She’s isn’t hurt, but she’s in bad shape from the fight.”

“What fight?” The venom in Alexia’s voice drained away.

Alfred looked away. Alexia followed his gaze to a pair of rough-looking leather boots, neatly set in the corner. After a moment he said, “…go see her first. I think she’s waiting for you. None of the blood is hers.” Throwing one more wounded look in her direction, Alfred limped off to his study, presumably to collapse like a marionette with their strings cut.

Grayson had turned to watch him go. “I should take a look at his leg. I dunno what happened, but it looks like he’s been through it.”

Alexia turned her glacial eyes to the stairs. The room they had prepared for Marigold back then would be up there. “Yes,” she said distantly. “You should go. I need time to clean myself up in the meantime.”

~

Alexia found her aunt sitting in a chair by the window of the room Harman had prepared for her all those years ago, staring outside. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days. Marigold’s light-reflective eyes tracked her in the dim room- she must have heard them come inside a moment earlier. Alexia paused in the doorway, taking in the reality of the situation, then stepped inside and closed the door quietly behind her.

Marigold looked…smaller than she remembered. Frayed at the edges. She had the same stillness about her, but there was a slackness in her posture that hadn’t been there before.

Alexia stepped forward, gingerly, stopping at a safe distance. Who knew what had happened to this woman in her seventeen-year absence. Alexia needed to assess the situation for herself, which was why she hadn’t told Grayson of this. He’d forget himself.

When Grayson forgot himself, he usually got himself hurt.

Marigold stared back at her. “You’re here,” she said, voice wondering and soft. Something, be it time or some trauma, had worn down the sharp, proud edge she’d once had in her voice. “I knew you would be, but I was afraid to hope.”

“I was going to say the same. We were told you died.” Alexia kept her voice level. She had left them, and afterward, everything had gone wrong. Perhaps correlation was not causation, but it had hurt them all deeply.

“No,” Marigold said, eyes clear. “I misstepped with Marcus a few years earlier, and his proteges put it together. I walked into a trap. They put me under Arklay to stem the damage after I…lashed out. I keep thinking that was only six months ago.” She looked down, staring at her hands almost without moving a muscle.

Alexia blinked. She’s been to Arklay, back in the summer of 1983 to work with Henry Sarton on Plant-42. How would she have missed that? The proteges she mentioned - William Birkin and Albert Wesker - had kept a wary distance in that time, but nothing unusual. “I went to Arklay to get access to samples, I would have heard -”

“Placidia.” Marigold said, voice bleak. “I’m told that’s what I was called at the time. I was hardly in any condition to protest. It was rolled into something called the Tyrant program later on.”

Alexia stopped and stared. She had heard that word at Arklay, murmured in corridors and attached to some high-level clearance project. Birkin had darted a smirking look at her once when it had been mentioned. She had assumed that he was revelling that he had access to a toy she didn’t.

She never would have thought that it had been one stolen from her family. “I’m going to kill Doctor Birkin.”

“No need.” Marigold’s near-empty expression twisted into a cruel smirk, eyes remaining oddly blank. “Apparently, it’s the hot new thing to inject yourself with your own research. Welcome back to the world, it’s full of idiots, and any mystery they managed to dredge up before has burnt out.”

Marigold blinked, and looked back up at Alexia. “I…sorry. That wasn’t aimed at you, exactly. I managed to hurt him before he lost his mind entirely. It was rather satisfying, at the time.” She turned back to the window. “The other one was more complicated, but he got what he deserved. Your brother said that he brought a recording of it back with him.”

Alexia smiled back, in spite of her trepidation. Marigold had doted on them as children, but on occasion it had become quite clear where her own mean streak came from. She held a hand up in demonstration, letting the exocrine glands there express before lighting it up. “I would have helped, you know. It’s almost a shame.”

It was Marigold’s turn to look surprised, and she shielded her eyes. “Are you on fire?”

“Are you covered in gore?” Alexia retorted.

Marigold shrugged, unrepentant, and looked down at herself. Alexia could see her already accepting that her niece could set herself on fire and was moving along. A little bit of her old energy seemed to spark back into being. “It’s not that much. I let the crows do some of the work.” She looked back up at Alexia, who had extinguished the flame. “You weren’t alone? When you woke? It must have only been a few hours ago.”

“No,” Alexia said with a fond smile. “I wasn’t alone. Grayson was there.” Her face darkened. “He’d thought I’d died too, but he found out in time.” She took a steadying breath, eyes narrowing at Marigold. She looks at Marigold. “I love you, and I missed you terribly. This still doesn’t add up. They didn’t just let you out, let you come here.”

Marigold looked at her, expression steady. She’d anticipated the question, Alexia realized. Her expression was one that had waited for ages for someone to ask it. “Five, maybe six months ago. I…was alone. Everyone was dead, or worse. They…it had all gone wrong. I walked back to the city. Had about a day to try to work out what was happening.” Marigold’s voice had turned hollow at the memory. Suddenly Grayson’s comments in comparing their situation to something out of Lovecraft seemed much less funny.

Marigold continued on. “People told me you died - the few I could actually ask, they told me - when I tried to find out what was happening. I…I felt ready to burn it all down. When I called here…Alfred wouldn’t actually say it. It took me a while to realize that.”

“And then?” Alexia’s mouth felt dry.

“The wrong people hunted me down. They were prepared, this time. He was, anyhow.” She looked exhausted. “Are we safe? I damaged them as best I could when we left Rockfort, but…” Marigold shook her head, casting a worried look out the window.

Alexia sighed. She needed to recuperate, and to clean herself up. Marigold clearly needed the same. The rest - the explanations, what came next - could hold until after at least that much. “As safe as we can be. We’ll have to leave, eventually, if there’s an outbreak. Spencer will have to clear it through the board before he can pull the trigger.”

“The Shire was saved, but not for me.” Marigold gave her a small smile.

Alexia couldn’t help but return it. She’d remembered how much Alexia had loved her Tolkien. “There are other places we can work from. Places that are ours.”

“You were only fourteen when you went away,” Her aunt said looking at her with hollow eyes. “You grew - you’re grown - but you weren’t there for it, weren’t you? Closed your eyes in one decade and woke in this one. I fear we have a shared experience in that department.” Marigold shut her eyes for a moment, and wilted slightly in her chair. “I don’t think he - Spencer - knows I survived Arklay. If that changes and we’re still here…” she winced and leaned back, bringing a hand to her belly.

“Are you sick?” Alexia took a step toward her, halting when Marigold held a hand up to stop her. Marigold reached into the tactical vest she was wearing - where had that come from? - and fished a laminated information card from a pocket. “I found this a little earlier. They used it to get me to Rockfort so I wouldn’t fight them on it.” She held it out to Alexia, and she took it. “Do you know what it is?” Marigold pulled out a square package that looked like it contained a bandage, or a patch. “These as well. He was putting them on me a few times a day. These are likely spares. I think they got much stronger a few days ago.” Marigold paused. “That’s likely not the only issue, but it’s not an immediate issue.”

Alexia looked down at the items she’d been handed. She was already intimately familiar with pEpsilon gas, given her work in converting it into a sophoric liquid to slow her metabolism over fifteen years and let the virus bond to her. While Marigold’s metabolism would adapt rapidly to the gas, it was an admittedly sensible short-term solution. Infuriating in how it might have been - would have been - used against them, but sensible.

The other was a strong hormone patch. Given the medications her aunt had had to take in those last few years, the inverse effect these would have had on her system would have meant...bad things. “You let them put these on you? These would have wreaked havoc on your self-control. That’s not like you, Auntie.”

Book 3 of The Calendula Chronicles.

Story synopsis: Albert Wesker molded his captive into the perfect, pliable bait for taking out Rockfort Island's paramilitary facility, and cracking open the Ashford family’s secrets. But who’s really in control, once chaos breaks out?

The stakes have never been higher for Marigold, but she may not be fast enough to save everyone.

Book 3 of the Calendula Chronicles series. Written as the other side of The Antarctica Incident.

Want to catch up? The story's a ways ahead on AO3

Chapter summary: The Antarctica arc begins.

Marigold huddled in the cockpit a moment longer, then gave up on waiting, easing herself out of the slender little plane. Alfred had spotted something- someone- near the hanger bay doors, and had sprung from the cockpit in hot pursuit as soon as he’d powered the engines down. That quiet internal calm that had let her seek out the sparks of life she had sensed months earlier there had been obliterated on Rockfort Island, and wasn’t coming back anytime soon.

It didn’t matter. Something here had changed around the time they had made their escape from the island. She’d felt that much. She didn’t dare go deep, not with Alfred shaking violently as he was. The emergency dose she’d found had been enough to quiet the tremors, but she feared the effects wouldn’t last. It was the same prototype dosage that they’d given Grayson immediately after exposure during her last visit last year - no. Seventeen years ago.

Seventeen years. She’d missed the children growing up. She’d missed the window they’d so desperately needed for someone to be there, to help them prepare for the world. Marigold was suddenly sorry she hadn’t stuck around the Matilda longer than she had. Why hadn’t she? There had been plenty more rebar lying about, more than enough to hammer home the damage Wesker had wrought in the lives of everyone who mattered worth a damn.

But of course, she knew. It was as the same reason she had frozen when that poor office manager had thrown herself into the line of fire at Arklay in her defence, with countless more ready to follow. Having the ability to throw lives into a meat grinder didn’t mean she had the stomach for it.

And poor Alexander had been left to flounder. Alexander, who rarely listened until he could see the evidence with his own eyes. The last time she had visited the family on Rockfort, he had only begun to notice the seething resentment his little girl harbored towards him. He’d been totally unaware at how alienated Alexia had begun to feel.

The dose had been enough to quiet Alfred’s tremors. He’d looked askance as soon as she’d focused in on the problem, and she’d been able to pick up that ephemeral scent of the roses about him. He’d also been kept awake, and on a manic hair trigger, for at least a day now. If amphetamines weren’t in the picture by this point, she’d eat her own boots.

Which meant he’d be coming down soon. Even if he’d taken a pill before they’d left the palace- and based on how he’d disappeared into the back for a bag, he’d had a window for it- they wouldn’t last forever.

So she’d done what she’d promised, during the flight, and talked. Marigold told him about what had happened down in Arklay, that one hazy interrogation. Waking in July, alone. The forest.

She left out her visit to STARS. She left out the details with Wesker, and avoided mentioning his name. Alfred had seen what she had done to him on Rockfort. That would be enough until they were safely back on the ground.

Alfred had asked the real question after a while. “Why didn’t you run?”

“They were ready for me. I never really learned how to fight properly, and in an even match that’s a problem. And…I didn’t know if they had done anything to me. Not for a while.”

“Did they?” Alfred’s voice had been tight with anger.

“No. I don’t think they did. They would have, eventually. I made enough of a mess on the way out that they wouldn’t risk my waking. The virus itself had changed, but I had already been starting to pick up on the variants. I’m not as quick on the uptake, but I put it together eventually. I sent Poppy a warning.” She’d chuckled darkly. “They really couldn’t leave me alone for a single moment. I had more old allies left alive than I initially believed. I’m quite sure I would have been locked down somewhere right now rather than here if it weren’t for them.”

Something within the facility was blooming. Why did everything remind her of the roses all of a sudden? Yet this was a quieter thing, an unfurling. She reached for the feeling, and felt it pull away. Whatever this was had been quietly protecting itself for a long time.

She shivered, and shrugged on the coat that had been left for her. Something hard was in the breast pocket, and she discovered a little silver keycard, embossed with her nephew’s name. Alfred had promised he’d only be gone a moment, then disappeared out into the snow with a worried glance back at her. This place had been the only safe harbour to escape the attack. It felt the way Raccoon City had during the beginning of the crisis, and the power had been cut.

The virus had come over with the survivors, then.

Something below shifted in unease. The thing she had sensed before Wesker had uncovered that facet of her abilities, blind, in unending pain. Hesitating, she reached out, then flinched back.

It knew the twins’ names. Had been calling for them.

You knew what might have happened, she told herself firmly. Especially since you never made it home. But being this close was a different matter.

There was so little left. Would she even know her niece’s face?

The sound of gunshots rang out almost as soon as Marigold’s feet touched the ground, cutting through her reverie. Two voices, male- one younger, with a tough affectation. Fighting. Alfred’s voice, shrill with pain.

The sense of melancholy dropped away, and Marigold’s head turned sharply to source the direction out in the blizzard. With a long steady stride- panic would just get her lost in the storm- she began to walk out of the hanger, ready to chase the interloper down.

----------

Claire found Steve crouching over Alfred’s bleeding and collapsed form. He’d caught the bastard in the leg- a good shot, from the amount of blood soaking into the snow around them. “Steve?” She said in a low voice. She’d get that way sometimes, like she were talking to a pissed-off zoo animal. It had pissed him off at first, but ever since he started working together to escape with her, and learned that she’d survived Raccoon City? He’d probably see crazy around every corner too. “Steve, we need to get out of here. He’s down, and we don’t know where we’re going. We’ll freeze if we don’t find shelter.”

Claire was pretty goddamned good at this, truth be told. It didn't hurt that he spent a lot of time running behind her…and she was hot as fuck. He’d learned pretty quickly to reel the moves in with her, if he wanted her to hang around.

Something silver and shiny had called out of Alfred’s pocket during the fight. It looked like a keycard. Steven grinned viciously and pocketed the little treasure. “I gotta be sure,” he said, and picked up his gun. He could end this, point blank, here and now.

A gunshot rang out from near the hanger doors, and the both of them looked up, sharply. A figure in a hooded parka was walking toward them, having fired a single shot upward, into the storm. They didn’t change their pace when they lowered their aim in their direction.

There was something weirdly…shiny about their eyes, the only clear feature he could make out in this white-out. Claire swore and grabbed him by the shoulder. “We need to get out of here,” she hissed at him.”

Did they make a third Terminator movie already? This one kind of sucks, Steve thought incoherently. Still, he had enough presence of mind to nod, and clamor to his feet, ducking instinctively as the gunshots rang out behind them. He yelped as a bullet grazed his arm a little too close, ripping through the parka’s thick padding, and let Claire drag him to another low building for shelter. There, they waited, hiding, staring out into the driving blizzard for several minutes.

The gunshots stopped. Nothing followed them. Steve finally spoke. “I think that…whatever…was tryin’ to scare us off. I sure as fuck wouldn’t give a warning shot. And they stopped as soon as we left. Maybe they work here? A guard? Someone from Rockfort maybe?”

Claire looked at him. “Maybe,“ she said. “They came awfully quick after you shot him, so they would have had to have been in the hanger. But I’d rather not call the bluff until I have to. Something about them got my hackles way up, and I’d rather not find out why.”

----------

The choice between pursuit and retreat was in the end, an easy one. Alfred was bleeding badly from his leg - he would freeze out here before long. “Come on,” Marigold said, pulling him up by the arm and ducking under it to support. “We need to get inside, now.” If he had been exposed to the roses, if the shot hadn’t hit something vital, he would recover quickly enough. Given the stressors on his system, he’d need any advantage he could get right now.

Once through the hanger, the temperature got a little easier to bear… and things began to get strange.

Black tendrils had begun to push their way out of the walls. They waved like sundews, tasting the open air. Marigold, with eyes better suited to the gloom, got a few steps inside the hallway before stopping dead. “Keep away from the walls,” she said to Alfred. “Something is growing. It’s all over the facility. It’s coming from down below.”

Alfred blinked in the dark. “Describe it,” he demanded, and Marigold told him what she was seeing. “I think she’s been waking up,” she finished. “Something changed when we were in the air. I didn’t want to distract you with something of that magnitude while you were trying to fly.” The sundew tendrils stretched in their direction as they passed, tentative.

Alfred stared. “We have to get down there,” he said in an urgent tone. “She needs…we have to go down. The elevator.” He began to try to push forward, then frowned when Marigold didn’t move. “Aunt Callie?”

“They don’t seem aggressive, even with you here. That’s a good sign. Let me try something.” Marigold had passed a hand over her mouth with one hand, and was already reaching for the nearest sundews. The tendrils stretched out in turn…and then flinched back, turning white and shriveled at the tips.

Mold, Marigold thought, feeling numb. It’s like Grayson. She used it in her virus.

“Alright,” she said, voice hollow. “That’s what I needed to know. Let’s go.” Alfred’s brow furrowed, but he nodded, and they resumed their trek to the elevator ahead.

----------

Below, Alexia stopped in mid-sentence, as she attempted to explain how her hyphae were certainly not Lovecraftian, and looked up. Someone had deliberately touched the hyphae up above, and had…repelled them. Not aggressively, but they had been burned in some way all the same.

It was a curious feeling.

Book 3 of The Calendula Chronicles.

Story synopsis: Albert Wesker molded his captive into the perfect, pliable bait for taking out Rockfort Island's paramilitary facility, and cracking open the Ashford family’s secrets. But who’s really in control, once chaos breaks out?

The stakes have never been higher for Marigold, but she may not be fast enough to save everyone.

Book 3 of the Calendula Chronicles series. Written as the other side of The Antarctica Incident.

Want to catch up? The story's a ways ahead on AO3

Chapter summary: The aftermath of the Rockfort Island operation, and. a new target is selected

The message from McNally had been illuminating, to say the least. The board- that was to say, Mark Oliver - had authorized the same deal they had been ready to offer Zinoviev, assuming the information was good. He’d said as little as possible about Marigold’s involvement in the escape.

“Be mindful of confronting them on their own turf, though,” Oliver had cautioned. “Green told me once those landed gentry types are like swans - pretty enough, but they’ll beat you to death if you look at their nest wrong.”

Wesker had suppressed a sigh on the call. “I’ve been getting that impression, yes.”

“Green worked out of London at the start of his career. He bowed out of the politics, but the older families absolutely buy into their own mythos. Frankly, I’m surprised he voted the way he did to let you proceed there with her at all, much less champion it during the vote.”

Mark had paused. Then, “Proceed. Secure T-Veronica, but do not lose that asset. Board support for funding past this mission rests on that last part.”

While Wesker recovered in an empty office within the military facility’s office barracks- the explosion had taken out the labs under the facility, but left the administrative section relatively untouched- Segers took a team up to the palace to confirm that it was truly empty. They found plenty of evidence of the “false” Ashford…and a dearth of old photos in the control room. Segers had come into his own since his field promotion after their rendezvous, and had the pragmatism to quietly collect and deploy the information necessary without drawing attention, or compromising the unit’s morale.

A smaller team, trained in sample and BOW management, collected the specimens from the training yard, nervously noting a large amount of blood still pooled and partially dried in a prominent location. The corvid population was strangely reticent for infected, sensing a trap, but they were making progress.

The mission was far from over - Rockfort lay in ruins, yes, but Alfred Ashford had fled, and the force he commanded were hungry for payback. In the meantime, Doctor Ashford’s T-Veronica was ripe and ready to be collected, and he had an asset to re-secure. The survivors had fled in the same direction, infected and doomed. Where she - they - were headed, there would be nowhere left to run.

The rest of the mercenary company had already begun their hunt for the rogue soldier while reinforcements were prepared for the next phase. Davies had last been sighted near his first stationed location, by the shell of the military facility. He’d been going for the weapons cache there, to stock up. The last report had come in ten minutes earlier, confirming that they had taken Davies down with teargas rounds, and were bringing him back to base. Wesker got on the comm and made a request: “Bring him to my location first. He has intel we need to move forward.”

Wesker now heard the men dragging a screaming, fighting Davies down the hall, and he got to his feet, turning to the door. He had left his battered and torn uniform on, and had only done the most cursory cleanup following his ordeal. When the soldiers dragged Davies, through the door, the look on his face told him that he had made the right call.

Davies began screaming even louder. His hands were cuffed, but his size still made it a struggle for the two men on both sides of him to contain.

Wesker nodded to the two men. “I’ll need a moment, if I may.”

“Sir, he took out half a unit before we could…” the soldier trailed off, seeing the state of his attire properly. “Ummm. We’ll be…down the hall.” The other soldier blinked in confusion, but the two of them still heaved Davies into the room and left quickly, shutting the door behind them.

Davies roared and lunged at him, only to be thrown violently against the wall. He tried again, to similar effect. After spitting up blood, Davies crawled to prop himself on one knee, looking like a cornered animal. Wesker stood before him, calm, ready to put him down again if needed.

The blood on Davies face almost obscured the swollen cut on his lip. A quick, precise bite. “I’ve been told you tried to fight her alone. Do you even realize what you’ve done?”

Davies glared up at him with hazy eyes, filled with rage. “We were bein’ liquidated. You set us up.”

Wesker almost had to laugh. “There are people who can make that claim, but not today.” Marigold had turned this man into a live grenade, and lobbed him back at the HCF while the Ashfords made their escape. “This is my mission. That directive did not come through me. Someone used you and your unit to start a rumour, in order to get you away from Ashford’s jet, and your unit fell for it. It’s going to take some time to deal with the damage you’ve done here.”

Wesker stepped forward and removed his scratched glasses, letting his anger rise. An interesting effect of the virus was the bioluminescence of his eyes when strong emotions rose through him. The way Davies tried to move back from him at the sight made it clear that they were doing as much now.

It had been years since he’d gotten his hands on one of Marigold’s little sleeper thralls, not since Arklay and never one this fresh— although the thought really should have occurred to him but…ah, yes. Wesker knelt down, putting himself at eye level with the other man.

Davies was beginning to put the picture together, taking in Wesker’s blood-soaked appearance, and had switched gears from fight to freeze. Wesker watched him, and Davies finally spoke. “She changed sides.”

“Long story short, but it seems that way. The hunting ground they fled to has nowhere to run to, and it’s a much richer target.” Wesker gave the man a cold, thin smile. “You’re going to tell me exactly what happened, how it happened, and at what time. Your time on this mission is over - your faculties are beyond compromised. Still, you could be of use in another capacity.”

“I’m already dead. She’ll know. She just will.” Davies looked a strange mix of fearful resignation with a thin edge of panic. Those in Marigold’s strange little network, taken in an aggressive manner, taken in anger, had been easy to identify. The ones like Ms. Everett had been virtually unidentifiable. That one, also in the wind, out of his reach. Marigold hadn’t simply been protecting a dear friend, or an old lover.

In a sense, they’d been her brood.

That instinct to protect her brood, was the key to locking her back down - this time in a more effective manner. The twins counted, he suspected, as much as the pets she made. Something about that thought twinged in his mind - her scent had changed - but he was too focused on his train of thought to stop and examine it.

This, before him, was what Spencer had feared enough to lock a treasure trove of data away for almost twenty years. “I think she didn’t expect you to get far,” he leaned down. His ‘turning’ could be turned to serve him, if he appealed to this man in the right way. “Do you see Umbrella sweeping in to protect this place? They were ready to let them all die here…. she told you to what? Disrupt the mission?”

“Make trouble. Slow the unit down.” Davies had begun panting. He seemed to be on the edge of breaking through the delerium of the implanted suggestion, beginning to fight drowning under the weight of it. She’d left the details to this soldier, then. Davies had begun to relax a little, eyes glazed and dilated. “Is this why you kept her in a separate building, because of this?” Davies, in the throes of realization, appeared to be quietly breaking down with the brief realization of what had been reduced to on a mere whim.

Just like Marcus had, that fateful day Marigold had called into the lab back in 1978, triggering the breakdown which had facilitated the start of his own rise.

Wesker smiled, grim. Now they were starting to get somewhere.

-----------

Alan Green sat behind his desk, pinching the bridge of his nose. “They thought we were going to what?”

“Liquidate the units at the end of the mission,” Mark said in equally sour tones. Something had disabled Wesker just long enough to sow chaos while he couldn’t answer his phone. If they hadn’t stayed long enough to flush out the t-Veronica tip, I’d call this a wash and have it cut short.”

Disabled. “What of the asset?”

Mark audibly groaned. “Unclear, but Ashford managed to take off in the ensuing chaos, and he’s saying suspiciously little on that front. I mentioned what you said about swans and that particular tier, and he seemed to clam up rather tight.”

Silence on the line, before Mark swore. “There it is,” Alan said in a dry voice. “The other shoe just dropped.

“The instant there’s a known outbreak, the detonation timer starts,” Mark argued. “The informant has a way to forestall that. Either they negotiate for a way out, or all that effort they’ve put into the last fifteen years will have been for nothing. The reports I’ve been getting back on Earl Ashford suggest he was hardly in any condition to fly. If all flight paths hadn’t been locked to Antarctica, I’d have my doubts about him making it at all.” Oliver paused. “This is what you voted for, Green. The risks were understood from the beginning. I didn’t even want her on the mission- what better way to shoot ourselves in the foot? But I was overruled so Wesker could have his lure.”

“So long as your Terminator gets to them first. I heard reports of prisoners escaping earlier. They’d be on the same trajectory- and I saw the same list of names that you did, Mark. Having that Redfield girl involved is a wildcard. We’re putting a lot on the line because of this faith you’ve placed, Oliver.” Alan hung up before Mark could get in another word. “Fuck.”

“Sweetheart?” Gemma’s voice came from the door of his home office. She’d been standing there for a few minutes, he realized. “Is everything alright?”

Alan gave a harsh laugh, covering it quickly. “Yes and no,” He replied. “She got what she wanted, I think, but the situation may become intractable very soon. That family’s been more active than they’ve let on.”

“Gemma gave him a wan smile from the doorway. “That sounds like a very Ashford situation, from what I recall of them.“

Book 3 of The Calendula Chronicles.

Story synopsis: Albert Wesker molded his captive into the perfect, pliable bait for taking out Rockfort Island's paramilitary facility, and cracking open the Ashford family’s secrets. But who’s really in control, once chaos breaks out?

The stakes have never been higher for Marigold, but she may not be fast enough to save everyone.

Book 3 of the Calendula Chronicles series. Written as the other side of The Antarctica Incident.

Chapter summary: Albert Wesker frees himself, and learns what's become of his operation.

Takes place alongside: Chapter 8 (Antarctica Incident)